EU Diary Includes Muslims Hindus and Jewish Festivities
But
NOT Christmas or Easter
FRANCE,
January 13, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)
– The European Commission has been attacked this week for its production of
over three million copies of a diary, called Agenda Europa,
which neglects to mention Christmas or any other Christian holiday.
The
diary includes references to Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Chinese
festivities, as well as to May 9 - Europe Day. However, there is no
mention of Christmas or Easter.
The
diary section dated December 25 is blank, while the bottom of the page reads
the secular message: “A true friend is someone who shares your concerns and
will double your joy,”
“Are
we ashamed of our Christian identity?”
A
commission spokesman in
Johanna
Touzel, the spokesman for the Catholic Commission of
the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, said the absence of
Christian festivals is “just astonishing”.
“Christmas
and Easter are important feasts for hundreds of millions of Christians and
Europeans. It is a strange omission. I hope it was not intentional,” she said.
Just
earlier this week, Pope Benedict XVI had decried the habit of secular
governments of banning recognition of Christian religious holidays out of fear
of “offending” religious minorities, in an address to the assembled diplomatic
corps of the
He
also criticized an increasing “tendency to consider religion, all religion, as
something insignificant, alien or even destabilizing to modern society.” He
warned that there are attempts “to prevent it from having any influence on the
life of society.”